From Here to Eternity (20 page)

whip? Well, I'm the guy. Holmes only thinks this is his Compny." The bottle worked back and forth now like a shuttle, weaving brilliant colors, over and under, around the strings of words. "How many guys from Bliss in the Compny now?" "Five, counting you. 'Champ' Wilson has the First Platoon," Warden said, skewering the word. "Preem the Mess. Two platoon guides, Henderson and Old Ike Galovitch." "Ike Galovitch! Jesus Christ! He was our boiler orderly at Bliss, couldnt even speak plain English." "Thats the boy. He still cant speak it. And he's Dynamite's Close Order expert." "My God!" Stark said. He was sincerely shocked. "You see what I'm up against?" Warden grinned happily, watching the lovely beautiful brilliant shuttling of the bottle as it wove and wound and spun the web of unreality, of talk about them both, relaxing into it. "... But you're all right. You were at Bliss and that puts you on the inside track."... "These cooks wont like it though."... "To hell with them. Long as I like it, you got no worry." ... "Okay, First. You lead the band."... "You goddam right I do.... "... the setup in the Regiment. Holmes and Colonel Delbert are just like that, see? They.. ." "... what I got to work with."... "They's two men you can depend on.... "... and heres the setup in the Compny. Strickly a jockstrap outfit, see? Dhom is the Staff because he's trainer for Dynamite's squad, but he's as far as he will ever get and.. ." The soldier's greatest hobby, he thought as he listened to his own voice talking, the bull session, add a bottle and you have his greatest joy, also his greatest escape, he thought. The unofficial institution that is the first-string substitute for women and the ageold conversation where the man explains his ideals and his hopes for his life and the woman listens and agrees and tells him how wonderful he is. But soldiers are men without women, he thought, and they cannot hold each other's heads upon their breasts and pat each other's hair. But they escape just as well, the other part reminded him. Ah, if you could only lose this other part of your mind too, like Stark is doing, not lose but forget it for a little while, without thinking about the women, or the men, or all the other angles. "Gimme a drink," Stark said. "Is that tall blonde wife of his still around?" "Who?" Warden said. "His wife," Stark said. "Whats her name. Karen. Is he still married to her? "Oh her," Warden said. Maybe its better for you you cant deliberately distract that other part, he thought. More painful, surely. But maybe in the long run better. Provided, of course, that you can stand it. There is courage, he thought, and then theres courage. "Yeah," he said, "he's still married to her. She comes over here ever once in a while. Why?" "I just wondered," Stark said, mellow now and feeling philosophical. "I dunno, I awys figure Holmes "would of left her before now. She was a regular bitch in heat at Bliss, when I knew her, but mean like, as if she really hated it and all the ones she gave it to. They said she laid half the EM on the Post at Bliss." "They did?" Warden said. "Hell yes. I heard she even got the clap down there. Ony thing kept her from bein out and out a whore was she was married." "You mean she kept her amateur standing," Warden said. Stark threw back his head and laughed. "Thats it." "I dont put much stock in stories like that though," Warden said, carefully casual. "You hear them about every woman that lives on a Army Post. Mostly wishful thinking, you ask me." "Oh yeah?" Stark said indignantly. "Well this aint no story. I fucked her myself, at Bliss. So I know it aint no story." "Come to think of it," Warden said. "I been hearin some pretty rough stories about her around here." What was it she had said, that afternoon, in the house, with the rain dripping sounding softly at the open window, what was it? Now he had it. She said, "Dont you want me either?" "You can probly," Stark said, whiskily innocent, "believe them all. Because she's rough. I can see a single woman sleepin around some," he said; "I can even see a married woman steppin out on her old man. But I dont like to see any woman, specially if she's married, just layin for any guy comes along. A whore's a whore, thats how she makes her livin. But theys somethin wrong with a woman who does it for fun, and then dont like it." "You think thats what she does?" Warden said. "Holmes's wife, I mean?" "Hell yes. Why should she of laid me down there at Bliss? a buckass private in the rear rank, who didnt even have no dough to spend on her?" Warden shrugged. "What the hell?" he said. "Its nothing to me. Maybe I can get some of it myself, sometime." "If you're smart," Stark said, "you'll leave it alone. She's nothin but a topflight bitch. She's coldern hardern any whore I ever saw." His face was adamant, convincing. "Here," Warden said. "Have another drink. Dont let it get you down, for Christ sake." Stark took the bottle without looking at it. "I done seen too many of these rich women. They worse than queers. And I dont like them." "Neither do I," Warden said. If she had as many.. ., Leva had said, she'd be a porcupine, he thought, listening to Stark's voice going on to something else and his own voice answering. And they're both smart boys, he thought, they know their way around, they aint punk kids. But Leva's only giving you hearsay, he's had no personal experience with her. And Stark was five years younger then, a mere nineteen, a kid, when he had his experience with her. That must have been an experience, he thought, that must really have been quite an experience, to make him talk the way he does now, five years later. Remember he was a juicy green young kid serving his first hitch. But would the woman who went on the moonlight swimming party have done that? would she have laid for half the EM at Bliss? What do you say? I dont know. Yes, you dont know; and here are two men who do know. But can you trust their judgment? No, you cant. You cant accept what they know, and you dont know. Where does that leave you? He wanted to take the bottle and rise up and smash it down on this talking, jawbone wagging skull, flatten it out on the floor until the jawbone jutted out of the pancaked matter and ceased wagging. Not because of what Stark had told him, and not because he'd laid this woman he himself had laid (you shy away from the Word, dont you?), no not because of that; he felt almost a curious friendliness and comradeship for him because of that, like two men who use the same toothbrush. Did two men ever use the same toothbrush? No, he wanted to flatten out this wagging skull with this bottle simply because it happened to be here, and he, absurdly, for no reason, felt the need of smashing something. Because what right have you to be mad at Stark because she laid for him? or for all the EM on the Post at Bliss, for that matter? "... I think we can make it work," Stark was saying. "We got all the cards." "Right." Warden caught the shuttle in midpassage and returned it to his footlocker. "You wont see me around after this, Maylon," he said. Might as well call him by his first name, he's practically your brother, it looks as though you've got a lot of brothers. "Bring your troubles to the Orderly Room," he said, listening to the tones of his own voice carefully. "You'll have plenty of them. But after Retreat you dont know me any better than you do any other noncom in this outfit." Stark nodded at this wisdom. "Okay, First," he said. "You better get back down and get that stuff cleaned up now," Warden said, astounded, maybe even proud, at how cool he could make his own voice sound. "Christ," Stark said getting up. "I forgotten all about it." Warden grinned, it felt as if his face was cracking, and waited till he left. Then he lay down on his bunk and put his arms behind his head. And with the other part, that came forward now, that always came forward when he was alone, thinking about it, consciously, like a man who cant quit biting on a sore tooth but wont go to the dentist. He could see it all in his mind, just the way it must have happened, with Stark holding her, her lying on the bed as he himself had seen her, every secret open and unveiled, the heavy breathing like a distance runner, the eyelids shuddering closed at that moment when you went clear out of your own body and you knew nothing and knew everything, you a long ways off with only a slim silver cord attaching you to yourself back there. Maybe Stark gave her more pleasure than you gave her, he thought, biting on the tooth that was unbearable, maybe all of them gave her more pleasure than you gave her, maybe even Holmes gave her more pleasure than you gave her. He had never thought about Holmes sleeping with her before. But now he thought about it. Now he wondered if she might not be sleeping with Holmes all along, all this time. Whats the matter with you? he thought, what is it to you? You're not in love with her. Its nothing to you who she sleeps with. You're not even going to see her anymore anyway. You made your mind up to that the night of the swimming party, didnt you? He would, he decided after a while, just keep that next date, after all. Theres no sense in turning down a piece of free stuff, when it costs three bucks at Mrs Kipfer's. Besides, he would like to find out the true answer to this puzzle, just to satisfy his curiosity, his intellectual curiosity. I think, piped up the other part of his mind suddenly, I think you wanted to keep it all along, meant to keep it all along. Maybe, he admitted. But anyway I didnt blow this transfer deal, did I? I could have, but I didn't. This deal should pan out all right now, if we have any luck, dont you think? Dont change the subject on me, the other part insisted. I think you meant to keep that date even then, that same night, when you went down to Wu Fat's and got drunk, looking for sympathy. All right, he said to it, but go away. Do you always have to be checking up on me too? like you do with everybody else? Cant you even trust your own flesh and blood? How much do you know about families? it said to him disgusted, and you ask me that? You're the one I should trust the least. Listen, he said, I got work to do. This kitchen deal is going to be touch and go for a while, and we'll need all our luck, but I think we can swing it, if we have the luck. So dont bother me with theory. This is practical. And he got up quickly off the bed and went downstairs to make out Stark's promotion, before it had a chance to answer. They had the luck. Capt Holmes found the order on his desk that night, when he stopped in a minute on his way up to the Club for dinner, and he signed it. It made Stark a First Cook with a First and Fourth, dropped Willard back to Second Cook and First and Sixth, and sent Pfc Sims back to straight duty shorn of his Sixth Class. It was just the way Holmes had planned it, except he had not meant to let Sims keep his Pfc, and he was surprised to find it there like that because he had expected to have trouble out of Warden when he put it through. Nothing serious, just some of Warden's childish balking, and he was glad now, as he signed it, that there would be no argument because he always hated to have to pull his rank, even when it was for the good of his Company. The rest of it was just as easy as that. It was so ridiculously easy that it seemed incredible. Stark had the anticipated trouble with the cooks. They balked at the assumed authority of the newcomer. Fat Willard, watching the wind change and seeing his own star set, was the ringleader. He agitated brilliantly and complained superlatively until Stark took him out on the green and beat him up so bad he was afraid to speak at all. When the rest of them impeded progress Stark took it to the Orderly Room. Warden gave his decision and Stark departed. By the end of a week Capt Holmes was so sure he had discovered a kitchen genius that he pointed out to Warden the vast importance of proper early training for recruits. Stark loved his kitchen, it was already "his," with the single-mindedness women have been taught to dream of and expect, demand, and decry when attached to anything but love. Stark drove himself as hard or harder than he drove the cooks and the KPs. The dormant Company Fund was brought into the light, and Stark bought new silverware, he recommended the purchase of newer better equipment. There were even fresh flowers on the tables now and then, a unique experience in G Company. Sloppiness in eating was no longer allowed, and Stark enforced this new rule like a tyrant. A man who slopped catsup over his plate onto the oilcloth would suddenly find himself outside the door in the middle of a meal. The KPs lived a life of hell on earth, yet the reflective eyes in Stark's sad sneering laughing face were always soft and no KP could force himself to hate him. They saw him working just as hard as they did, and they chortled at the way he rode the cooks. Even fat Willard was forced to work. In less than two weeks, before the end of March, the tall cadaverous Sergeant Preem was broken to a private. Capt Holmes could be as hard as the next man, when it was necessary. He called Preem in and told him bluntly and militarily. Because after all, it was Preem's own fault, nobody could have given him more of a chance than Capt Holmes. If another man was the better man, then by rights he should have the job. He gave Preem a choice between transferring to another company in the Regiment, or transferring to another regiment, because you cant let a former high-ranking noncom stay in his outfit as a private, its bad for discipline. Preem, who had been rising every day at noon, oozing that stale mushy smell of a middle-aged drunk, and wandering out dazedly through his now bustling sparkling kitchen where there was no room for him, chose the other regiment because he was ashamed. He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He was through and he knew it. His gravytrain days were over. He heard his fate with a face that was as much dazed as it was impassive. He was a broken man. "Captain," Warden said, after he had left, "how you want me to make this order out? Busted for 'Inefficiency'?" "Why, yes," Holmes said. "How else would one make it?" "Well, I thought maybe we might make it 'Insubordination.' Everybody gets busted for insubordination sometime or other. A man who aint been busted for insubordination aint a soldier yet. But 'Inefficiency,' a man who's got that on his record's done." "Why, yes, Sergeant," Holmes said. "Make it "Insubordination.' I dont guess anybody'll know, will they? Preem ought to have a break, as long as it doesnt interfere with the efficiency of my Company. After all, he served with me in Bliss." "Yes, Sir," Warden said. The order was made out that way, but he knew it was a futile gesture. The minute Preem appeared at this new outfit with his rubber hammer look they would know